Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The Servants’ Apple Pudding.

Whenever I hear or read someone going on about ‘The Good Old Days’,
I take a deep breath, bite my tongue, and try to stop my eyes rolling
heavenward in exasperation. I guess I must look pretty funny, Huh? Sometimes,
despite my best efforts, I cannot help saying a few or a lot of words, most of
them with a sharp-sounding edge. Guess I sound pretty funny too.

It pays to remember that in The Good Old Days, one’s employer had rather
more power over one than is possible today (for those of us in the lucky parts
of the world that is.) In olden times, for example, the servants in wealthy
households worked very long days, with little or no time off, and received little
more than their keep. In the eighteenth century, one expectation on the part of
the servants was that their ‘keep’ would include plumb pudding regularly on the
menu . We associate plum pudding now with Christmas, but it was once a staple –
because the ingredients, and the pudding itself, had good keeping qualities.
Plum pudding may not have been a daily dish for most, but nor was it a rare
treat.

The most fascinating source of information on life on the farm and
the estate is The Country Housewife’s
Family Companion (1750) by William Ellis. He describes how one Master of
the household made some moves towards economy in the matter of his servants’
food, but not to the point of meanness.

How a Lord’s Family-Servants had Apple-Pudding made for
them instead of Plumb-Pudding.

The Lord I mean here, was one that was a true Œconomist,
yet kept a good House both for eating and drinking, for I have known him to
keep two Men Cooks at a Time. However, to save extraordinary Expense, amongst his
other Management, he obliged his many common Servants to eat no other Pudding
for seven Weeks together than Apple boil’d Pudding, which with other Victuals
gave them a full pleasant Meal; the Apple-Pudding was made thus: - the Dough or
Crust was made with Wheat-meal, and either Butter, Suet, or Kitchen Fat, rolled
thick to wrap over Apples chopt into small Pieces. When this was done, the
Pudding was tied up in a Cloth, and boiled three or four Hours. Then they eat
it with Sugar in melted Butter put over the Apples. This was done to save the Charge
of Plumbs &c.